Envying Saint Hildegarde

I want to know her kind of green -

the shade she discovered

alcoved in vine leaves, feeling

 her  soul make chlorophyll.

 

Light and rain

left on the foliage

converted to a divine sense

of verdancy

 

that haunted her awareness

of  Life in all places.

 

Even the rocks jutting

over the sea Their bare shins

scraped by wind and salt,

 

the shriek of shorebirds

echoing through pale bones

of driftwood and  split-open

ribs of the clam.

 

Their lament drawn

by everything lost and hollow.

 

And here, too, where  her Rhine

is a hose trickle in dirt

the spigot grudgingly  gave;

 

and her abbey's portico.

the stem work of  hedges

half-shaven by rusty shears,

 

she would find spring

calling her home, cascading in bright

syllables on the desert's tongue.

 

 

We're still greening, rooted in the sun

she would say -- but I have yet

to unhood this shadow

and feel such leafing in my veins.